Writing and Gender: UMIH Passions, Pedagogies, and Publics Forum
On October 22, 2014, the Passions, Pedagogies, and Publics research cluster hosted the first of four public events that aim to give participants an opportunity to see how writing is being taught and used as a tool for learning in various disciplines, to explore connections to their own teaching contexts, and to generate strategies and recommendations for understanding and teaching writing in the province--from Kindergarten through post-secondary education. This first conversation focused on Writing and Gender with presentations from Dr. Liz Milward and Ms. Judy Amy.
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Politicizing the Personal in Women & Gender Studies Writing Assignments
Dr. Liz Millward
Dr. Liz Millward
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Contextualizing her experiences teaching undergraduate courses in the Women’s and Gender Studies department at the University of Manitoba, Dr. Liz Millward especially focused on teaching first-year courses to sections of 80 or more students. These first year courses are designated as “W” courses, which means that that students qualify for an institutionally recognized writing credit because a certain amount of writing is produced and evaluated within the course. Throughout her talk, Millward raised the important question: how do Women’s and Gender Studies teachers approach writing to introduce, explore, and enact feminist theories?
Millward reflected on the second-wave feminist slogan “The personal is political” and the historical place of consciousness-raising in the women’s movement and in the development of pedagogical approaches to teaching Women’s and Gender Studies courses in the university. Consciousness-raising offered women the opportunity to voice and acknowledge their individual experiences, but also to see how those individual experiences were part of collective patterns of power and politics. It is within everyday experiences where feminist theorizing begins. |
When Women’s and Gender Studies classes began in universities the 1970s, class sizes were relatively small and consciousness-raising techniques were incorporated as pedagogical approaches. As departments and classes have grown in size, teachers of these courses are faced with dilemmas of how to incorporate the personal and political process of consciousness-raising in and through writing assignments. The journal became a fairly common, yet contested written assignment in Women’s and Gender Studies courses. Millward named three distinct problems with the journal as a writing assignment: (1) The changing demographic of students who are taking Women’s and Gender Studies classes often means students do not identify as feminists and resist the theorizing aspect of consciousness-raising; (2) Students may assume that journal writing means freedom from conventions or clarity. Although students may share deeply personal experiences, they might still be evaluated poorly because of how they have expressed and analyzed their experiences; (3) The confessional mode of journal writing often leaves the writer taking the role of victim or oppressor, paralyzing them to look beyond the personal.
Millward then shifted to discuss her own teaching practices. She shared possibilities for Women’s and Gender Studies writing assignments that encourage the exploration of everyday experiences, but also develop academic skills and engage with feminist points of view. Millward develops ways for students to take a feminist concept or idea and work through everyday experiences—just not always everyday experiences that are directly their own. She described three different possibilities for writing assignments:
1) Novel or film studies to explore feminist concepts. Millward described inviting students to explore a feminist concept like subjectivity or voice, but doing so through a carefully chosen novel or film. The novel or film offers an everyday experience, but there remains enough distance for the student to have perspective on both the personal and the political aspects of the experience.
2) Mapping fear. In this assignment, students work with feminist concepts around fear. They then use a map of the University of Manitoba to represent spaces of fear. They can draw upon the theoretical literature and, if they choose, include their own experiences of fear in the campus landscape.
3) Transportation disadvantage. This assignment explores theories of having no access to transportation can put people at a disadvantage. Students are encouraged to use their own experiences as a data source to document and provide evidence for this concept.
Millward then shifted to discuss her own teaching practices. She shared possibilities for Women’s and Gender Studies writing assignments that encourage the exploration of everyday experiences, but also develop academic skills and engage with feminist points of view. Millward develops ways for students to take a feminist concept or idea and work through everyday experiences—just not always everyday experiences that are directly their own. She described three different possibilities for writing assignments:
1) Novel or film studies to explore feminist concepts. Millward described inviting students to explore a feminist concept like subjectivity or voice, but doing so through a carefully chosen novel or film. The novel or film offers an everyday experience, but there remains enough distance for the student to have perspective on both the personal and the political aspects of the experience.
2) Mapping fear. In this assignment, students work with feminist concepts around fear. They then use a map of the University of Manitoba to represent spaces of fear. They can draw upon the theoretical literature and, if they choose, include their own experiences of fear in the campus landscape.
3) Transportation disadvantage. This assignment explores theories of having no access to transportation can put people at a disadvantage. Students are encouraged to use their own experiences as a data source to document and provide evidence for this concept.
stereoTYPING: Blogging Toward Acceptance and Understanding
Judy Amy
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Judy Amy shared her experiences as a writer of a blog that explores her experiences as a parent of gender-fluid child (www.thinkdreamdo.wordpress.com) who is navigating his first years in school. Amy used to journal, enjoying the physical sensation of making marks on paper, but discovered that in a household with three children under the age of 7, keeping track of an actual journal seemed a daunting task. Instead, she decided to try the computer and began a blog. In the beginning, her blog had only a few followers, mostly friends and family, but her number of followers has grown as her blog has developed.
Amy was inspired to begin her blog when her oldest son became school age. Amy was an early-years teacher before having children, so she intimately understands the landscapes and experiences of schools for young children. She knows that schools can be places that can be complicated for people (both students and teachers) that are perceived as different. |
She described her son as “gender-fluid”—along with loving super heroes, he also loves Barbies, sparkles, and rainbows. As her son headed toward kindergarten, this began to cause Amy some tension. Although he had a wonderfully supportive teacher, she knew that the teacher was only a small part of the equation in a student’s experience in schools. Amy wanted her son to be able to express his individuality, but worried that other children would tease or harm him because of his choices in clothing or how and what he wanted to play. Amy said that she did not want her child to be a “poster child of misunderstanding.” She was pulled between wanting to challenge the rigid understandings of gender that her son organically resists and wanting to negotiate ways to protect him by drawing less attention away from his differences. This tension has become particularly strong for Amy this year as her son is in grade 1. He is at school longer and interacts more in the hallways and playground with older children who may have stronger opinions on what is “appropriate” for boys and girls.
Amy connected her own experiences as a blog writer to a quote she adapted from Audre Lorde (exchanging the word “poetry” for “writing”):
Amy connected her own experiences as a blog writer to a quote she adapted from Audre Lorde (exchanging the word “poetry” for “writing”):
Writing is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Writing is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest external horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our writing,carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives. (1984, p. 36)
Amy described her blog writing as a manifestation of this cycle—language—idea—action. As she has written more about her experiences as a parent of a child who lives outside the typical gender boxes, she has gained a clearer idea of how to respond to the complexity and fluidity of gender for her son and other children. She shared that her son said, “Some boys like girls things. Some girls like boy things.” He said this not as a question, but as a statement. She feels the writing on her blog has begun to feel more like this—it is more a statement than a question. As her language becomes idea, she has felt more empowered to take action. She is inviting others—educators, students, and parents—to join her in writing for social justice with freedom, understanding, compassion, and power. Amy’s writing is beginning to give name to the nameless for herself and others.
Lorde, A. (1984). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press.
Lorde, A. (1984). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press.